I agree that MTV has totally ruined music today....but lets face it, it saved us back then. Without MTV we'd still be listening to Captain and Tenile, and Journey.

MTV is such a marketing machine that its far worse than the radio-control of the 70's....its just such a farse compared to how it started out. But...you know.....absolute power corrupting absolutely and whatnot... Today you have to be good looking and marketable first, and talented second.
Also remember that MTV showed videos from bands whos members were already in their 30's or later...today? You'll be lucky to find an act older than 25....
(For those of you who did NOT grow up in the 80's, you have to remember before MTV nobody had even HEARD of a Music Video. The first day you saw a band...on TV...playing in some music video...was a true day of Awakening)......well, that and NIGHT FLIGHT on USA Network

Half the time you saw the video you didn't even recognize the people in it....because album covers didn't always have pictures of the band!
Ok...Movies: Maximum Overdrive? Dunno man, I like it.....its cheezy, but I like it. I remember the ads on TV with Stephen King talking to the camera "I'm going to scare the HELL out of you!". Then themovie debuted, and they pulled those ad's pretty quick.
As for Teen Movies, Every generation has em. In the 80's we had Fast Times, today they have American Pie. In the 80's we had The Breakfast Club, or St. Elmos Fire for the OLDER kids (heh)....today..errr..well I'm sure they exist, I'm just not seein em. But Scream, Scary Movie......pfeh...just ripoffs of slasher flicks done 20 times before.
In fact Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (and 1000 lousy plotlines, I might add) just skips the 80's and goes right back to the horror flicks of the 70's.....The Tourist Trap, Texas Chainsaw..etc.
Television: In the 70's you had 3 choices: Sitcoms (all filmed before a live studio audience on 1 single stage), Cop Shows, and Variety Shows. *Shudder*. Today you have a broader range of comedies available, but the cop shows are back in Full Force.......in the 80's TV was. Well.....
I gotta be honest: I hated TV in the 80's, at least TV that happened AFTER 5pm. 1980's AFternoon Cartoons (aka: 1/2 hour commercials) Owned, period. Transformers, GI Joe, Robotech..heck even Thundercats, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and so on.....oooh my that was good stuff. Saturday morning had Spiderman and his amazing friends, and the early 80's had The SuperFriends. But other than that....80's TV was pretty bad.......in fact, I'd say 80's TV was far worse than the 70's...or the 90's.
FASHION: Ok.....today, 80's fashion looks silly....everything is freakin DayGlo...but I wore skinny ties (both regular and Knit, with the flat-bottoms).......and watching 80's music videos you forget how freakin BIG hair was then. Big, Big Big.
Its nice to know our pop culture is nothing but an endless stream of nostalgia

But when day-glo comes back into fashion, its gonna be scary to see girls dressed up like Madonna....in those ray-bans and quasi-lingere outfits, circa 1984
